XXV 



physiology, one of comparative anatomy, and one of hnman anatomy 

 and anthropology. The work which he did however contrive to find 

 time to pnblish, and by which he will be chiefly known to posterity, 

 is remarkable for its thoroughness. He never committed himself to 

 writing withont having completely mastered everything that had been 

 previously written upon the subject, and his memoirs bristle with 

 quotations from, and references to, authors of all ages and all nations. 

 The abundance with which these were supplied by his wonderful 

 memory, and the readiness with which, both in speaking and writing, 

 his thoughts clothed themselves with appropriate words, sometimes 

 made it difficult for ordinary minds to follow the train of his argu- 

 ment through long and voluminous sentences, often made up of 

 parenthesis within parenthesis. 



The work which was most especially the outcome of his professorial 

 duties is the " Forms of Animal Life," published at the Clarendon 

 Press in 1870. Though written chiefly with a view to the needs of 

 the university students, it is capable of application to more general 

 purposes, and is one of the earliest and most complete examples of 

 instruction by the study of a series of types, now becoming so 

 general. As he says in the preface, " The distinctive character of the 

 book consists in its attempting so to combine the concrete facts of 

 zootomy with the outlines of systematic classification, as to enable the 

 student to put them for himself into their natural relations of founda- 

 tion and superstructure. The foundation may be wider, and the 

 superstructure may have its outlines not only filled up, but even con- 

 siderably altered by subsequent and more extensive labours ; but the 

 mutual relations of the one as foundation and the other as super- 

 structure which this book particularly aims at illustrating, must 

 always remain the same." 



Besides this work, Professor Rolleston's principal contributions to 

 comparative anatomy and zoology are the following : — " On the 

 Affinities of the Brain of the Orang Utang," "Nat. Hist. Review," 

 1861 ; " On the Aquiferous and Oviductal SystJem in the Lamelli- 

 branchiate Molluscs " (with Mr. C. Robertson), " Phil. Trans.," 

 1862 ; " On the Placental Structures of the Tenrec (Centetes 

 ecaudatus) and those of certain other Mammals, with Remarks on the 

 Value of the Placental System of Classification," " Trans. Zool. Soc," 

 1866; "On the Domestic Cats of Ancient and Modern Times," 

 " Journal of Anatomy," 1868 ; " On the Homologies of Certain 

 Muscles Connected with the Shoulder- Joint," " Trans. Linn. Soc," 

 1870 ; " On the Development of the Enamel in the Teeth of 

 Mammals," "Quart. Journ. Micros. Soc," 1872; and "On the 

 Domestic Pig in Prehistoric Times," " Trans. Linn. Soc," 1877. 



Latterly he did much admirable work in anthropology, for which he 

 was excellently qualified, being one of the few men who possess the 



